Top Gun’s faith only starts to make sense during gold-plated collection

WHEN Shakespeare wrote that all the world’s a stage and all the men and women merely players, he had the acting profession pretty well sized up. The genius is in the writing and the direction, not the performing.

All that is lacking is the word “discuss” and that would make a useful university exam question.

The truth is, though, in my experience, there isn’t an awful lot of discussion to be had: it’s precisely because a lot of actors’ minds are vast empty sheds that they have the ability to take on the personalities and passions of others. Some might say, the less going on upstairs, the more successful an actor will be.

Call that prejudice; call it what you like. It gives you an idea, however, as to how I felt when a good friend in New York emailed to tell me she had just put a copy of a Tom Cruise book in the post to me. How long have we known each other, I wondered? Surely you appreciate by now how I feel about Hollywood beefcake pontificating on any subject?

When the package duly arrived a week later, I was pleasantly surprised, mind you. This wasn’t the collected thoughts of Tom Cruise — surely a rather slim volume — or even a journal detailing his exploits on the sets of Top Gun or Cocktail.

Rather, it was a new work by the chronicler of the Charles-Diana divorce, Andrew Morton. As we all now know, that particular publishing endeavour turned out to contain an uncomfortable amount of truth.

I cannot pretend to know how much of Tom Cruise: An Unauthorised Biography is the result of solid research and how much is speculation.

What I do know is that the very fact it cannot be bought outside the United States because Saint Martin’s Press fears other countries’ celeb-friendly libel laws suggests it is either a pack of lies or someone has something to hide.

Needless to say, I won’t repeat the juicier details here, but the potential trouble lies in the book’s depiction of the “Church” of Scientology.

For the uninitiated, Scientology was the brainchild of Lafayette Ron Hubbard, a struggling American writer of sci-fi and Western stories for pulp magazines. He roamed all over, briefly living in Dublin in the 1950s and then in England, attracting controversy wherever he went. It says something when even the white Rhodesian regime asks you to leave.

At the core of the belief system, apparently, is a promise to free us all from the influence of Thetans brought to earth 75 million years ago and then exterminated using atom bombs by a tyrannical alien spacelord called Xenu. Indeed…

(I apologise to any Scientologists reading this if I have got a few details mixed up but I’m not familiar with the key texts— something we will come to.)

On the face of it, having a bizarre foundational narrative at its heart scarcely sets Scientology apart. Some Aboriginal peoples believe the universe was created when a giant rainbow-coloured snake sloughed off its skin and who, in this politically correct age, is going to say they are bonkers?

In our own part of the world, strange-sounding beliefs like the Virgin Birth only seem credible because weimbibed them with our mothers’ milk. The supernatural stems of all religions appear ridiculous to those who do not believe them.

Critics insist, though, that Scientology is qualitatively different. The German government takes a particularly dim view and has toyed with banning it altogether. To Berlin, Scientology represents a potent blend of racism and totalitarianism.

What did you expect from a kooky writer of bad books who once famously remarked that “writing for a penny a word is ridiculous. If a man really wants to make a million dollars, the best way would be to start his own religion”?

Hubbard is now dead, but his empire has proved to be far more lucrative than that. In Britain alone, despite having fewer than 2,000 adherents, its assets have been valued at as much as $100 million.

In Ireland, the group is somewhat less well endowed than it was following the settlement of a High Court claim for damages from a former member.

But the parish priest isn’t averse to taking a bob or two, you might well say. And some of our very respectable Protestant churches are quite serious about expecting their members to tithe — give a tenth of their income to church funds.

Scientology, on the other hand, takes the term “pay-as-you-go” to a whole new level entirely.

You see, if you want to know about Jesus Christ, any church will give or lend you a Bible. Even those well-groomed Latter Day Saints will pass you a copy of their sacred text, the Book of Mormon, if you ask nicely. Scientology’s dupes, however, are asked to dig deep — very deep — to take each step along the Bridge to Total Freedom.

You can buy a Bible in a bookshop for a fiver and it contains all you need to know. The cost of the entire Scientology course, meanwhile, will set you back €250,000, ex-members estimate.

The “church” disputes this, but doesn’t deny one gold-plated course comes with a €25,000 price tag.

Small change to Tom Cruise, perhaps, but that’s a lot of money to the young individuals with low self-esteem who are targeted by Scientology.

Last weekend, anti-Scientology campaigners held a protest outside the cult’s Irish headquarters in Dublin. The Scientologists, in turn, accuse them of being bigoted and opposed to freedom of religion.

THE “church” reaction to Andrew Morton’s book is even more venomous. It points to the fact that it is a legal entity and that adults must be allowed the freedom to choose their own path — and the freedom to squander their own money as well, presumably.

Does that mean Scientology is as harmless as a flutter on the horses or yoga? Weren’t all manner of weird beliefs like spiritualism popularised in London and Dublin in the Victorian era?

Where would we be without the Tom Cruises of this world to remind us how glad we are not to live in Hollywood?

Certainly, the widespread conclusion that Scientology is harmful to your finances and possibly to your family life shouldn’t lead us to demand the government step in.

Scientology might be on the lunatic fringe, but religious freedom was hard-won in this country. First they came for the Scientologists, but I wasn’t a Scientologist — and so on.

Still, Scientology seems unusually brittle and litigious. What sort of religion is it that cannot stand some satirisation and a few protests?

The freedom to believe in Thetans is important, but so is the freedom to warn that Scientology is odd — sinister, some say.

If the Scientologists had nothing to fear they would publish their texts for free. They won’t because they’re terrified of our laughter. Martin Luther, on the other hand, could have taught the publishers of Morton’s book a thing or two about courage.